Prime 9
- Dakota Kotowski and Ben Whetstone accounted for four of MSU's five home runs last week
- Keith Guttin ranks fourth on the NCAA's Division I wins list for active coaches with 1,287 victories
- MSU holds a 25-20 all-time record in its series with SIUE, including a 14-9 mark against the Cougars at home
- The Bears have plated 37 runs and produced 12 different multi-run scoring rallies in their last 71 turns at bat
- Whetstone moved into the ninth spot on MSU's career putouts (997) last weekend against Maine and recorded his 100th and 101st career double play turned in Tuesday's game vs. ORU
- MSU recorded six doubles in a game for the first time since April 2010 in its 4-1 win over Maine on Sunday
- The Bears have won 44 of their last 68 regular-season non-conference home games, outscoring their non-league opponents by a 868-584 margin at Hammons Field over the same stretch
- Hayden Juenger logged his fourth save of the season Sunday and ranks second in the MVC
- Forrest Barnes shares the MVC lead with three mound victories after holding Maine to two hits over 7.0 innings in his first start of the season Sunday
Leading Off
After taking two of their three games with Maine to open the 2020 home campaign over the weekend, the Missouri State Bears conclude their five-game homestand with a 3 p.m., Wednesday contest against the SIU Edwardsville Cougars.Â
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The Bears, who dropped a 2-0 decision to ORU on Tuesday, rallied from an early deficit to take their rubber match from Maine on Sunday, getting 7.0 innings of two-hit mound work from
Forrest Barnes in a 4-1 victory.
Logan Geha paced the MSU offense with a big weekend, finishing 7-for-11 with a home run and a pair of doubles. SIUE (8-6) swept its OVC series from Tennessee Tech over the weekend and has claimed wins in four of its last five outings.
Series History
Missouri State has enjoyed a string of recent success against SIUE, having won four in a row over the last eight seasons and six of the last seven meetings in the series since 2010. MSU swept a three-game set from the Cougars in the two clubs' last match-up at Hammons Field in March 2016. The Bears are 14-9 overall against SIUE on their home field.
Happy Homecoming
Missouri State opened its 2020 home slate this past weekend and extended a recent home-field advantage of unprecedented proportions. With their eighth home-opening victory in the last 10 seasons, the Bears have now gone 11-6 in home debuts since moving to Hammons Field in 2004. They have won 44 of their last 68 regular-season non-conference home games, outscoring their non-league opponents by a 868-584 margin at Hammons Field since the start of the 2015 season.
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The Bears have logged four of their top single-season home win totals since the 2015 season, going 17-6 at home in 2018, after a 21-7 home mark in 2017, a Hammons Field-record 22 victories in 2016 and the Bears' best-ever home win percentage at Hammons with a 19-3 (.864) mark in 2015.
Elite Company
The Bears' Feb. 25 game at ORU marked the beginning of a notable string of elite opponents for Missouri State, which will play nine-straight games against NCAA Division I College World Series qualifying teams and 16 of 17 contests overall against CWS-qualifying clubs.
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MSU will play two games against ORU (who appeared in Omaha in 1978), three against Rice (seven appearances), one game with Oklahoma State (20 appearances) and three contests against Maine (seven appearances) over the period Feb. 25-March 8. Following a midweek game against SIU Edwardsville (March 11), the Bears will then play seven more games against three additional CWS qualifiers (UC Irvine, Alabama and San Jose State) before opening Valley play with a three-game set at Bradley, which has made two of its own CWS trips.
Bravo for Barnes
Sophomore right-hander
Forrest Barnes picked up his team-leading third mound victory in Sunday's series-clinching 4-1 win over Maine. The Ozark, Mo., product held the Black Bears to one run on just two hits, dispatching the first 10 Maine hitters of the game in succession and finishing the afternoon five strikeouts. For the season, Barnes has registered a 2.37 ERA while limiting the opposition to a .148 batting mark with 17 punchouts in 19.0 total innings.
Getting Offensive
Since enduring a 34-inning scoreless drought over parts of five games from Feb. 20-25, the Bears' offense has heated up to score 37 runs in their last 71 turns at bat, averaging just under five runs per contest in their last nine games. Furthermore, MSU has posted 12 different multi-run rallies over the same stretch after logging only two such rallies over its first 67 turns at bat of the season.
Power Surge
After hitting just two home runs as a team over their previous eight contests dating back to Feb. 20, the Bears powered up to club five long balls in four games last week. The duo of
Dakota Kotowski and
Ben Whetstone accounted for four of those, with each going deep in successive games against Oklahoma State (March 3) and Maine (March 6).
Logan Geha added a solo blast in Saturday's contest, hiking the Bears' season home run total to 11.
In Rare Company
With Missouri State's 6-1 win over New Orleans on April 19, 2019, Bears head coach
Keith Guttin moved past legendary Miami coach Ron Fraser (1,271) to climb to the 19th position on the NCAA's Division I career coaching wins list.
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With a career record of 1,287-820 (.611), Guttin now needs 13 more victories to match the career total of Fresno State's Bob Bennett (1,300) in the No. 18 spot on the chart. Guttin is the second-winningest coach in MVC history, while his win total ranks fourth among all active Division I head coaches entering the 2020 season, his 38th at the Bears' helm.
Non-Con Domination
MSU has been nearly unstoppable against non-conference competition over the last five seasons, compiling a 101-68 (.598) record in regular-season games versus non-league foes since the start of the 2015 season. The Bears have won 44 of their last 68 regular-season non-conference home games, outscoring their non-league opponents by a 868-584 margin at Hammons Field over the same stretch.
Bears on the Radio
Once again in 2020, Meyer Communications is slated to provide live radio coverage of all 56 Missouri State regular-season games, plus all Bears' games in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament and any 2020 postseason play. The broadcasts can be heard primarily on KBFL 1060 AM and 96.9 FM in Springfield with
Art Hains, Ben Goss and Corey Riggs describing the action. An online audio stream is available through KBFL's website via RadioSpringfield.com.
Bears on ESPN
Missouri State University, in conjunction with SIDEARM Sports, launched a new partnership in August 2016, unveiling a reconstructed MissouriStateBears.com, the official MSU Athletics web site. The revamped MissouriStateBears.com will provide MSU fans with improved features and overall customer service. The new-and-improved site uses the latest technology to provide fans with a seamless, robust experience unique to Missouri State University.
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In 2015, ESPN and the Missouri Valley Conference announced a 10-year extension to their current media rights agreement that will provide increased coverage of conference events across ESPN platforms through the 2023-24 academic year. Fans can keep tabs on the Bears through The Valley on ESPN. As part of the deal, ESPN, the MVC and its 10 member institutions will work jointly to develop in-house production capabilities at each campus that will provide significant coverage for multiple sports on ESPN+/ESPN3.
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